If Portugal wants to achieve its target of 9GW of installed capacity ahead of schedule by 2026 rather than by the end of the century, it will need to address one of the main obstacles it currently faces: licensing issues.
At this week's European Large Solar Conference, team members discussed the future of the Portuguese solar market, which has undergone some regulatory improvements, including less stringent environmental assessments for projects under 100 hectares to help accelerate the deployment of solar photovoltaic, but more work needs to be done.
"We need faster and smoother licensing," said Pedro Pereira, General Manager of Eurowind Energy in Southern Europe. Pedro Amaral Jorge, CEO of the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association (APREN), said that in 2018, Portugal had only 5 GW of application capacity waiting for licensing. By the end of 2020, this number has sharply increased to 250GW.
In addition, Amaral Jorge stated that Portugal's National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), released in 2019, may revise its goal to increase the installed capacity of solar photovoltaic from the current 9 GW to 15-20 GW by 2030.
Jo ã o Amaral, Chief Technology Officer and Country Manager for Portugal at Voltalia, added that as the demand for newer renewable energy applications increases, the government needs to provide licenses for these new projects and withdraw capacity projects that have not yet been implemented.
At the end of 2022, the installed capacity of solar photovoltaic in Portugal was 2.6GW, with an increase of 446MW in large public projects and 385MW in small and medium-sized projects in the same year alone. As shown in the figure below, by the end of July, Portugal had exceeded the full year figure for 2021.
Miguel Lobo, Portugal's national head of Lightsource BP, said that so far, Portugal needs to double its installation rate to achieve the target of 9GW of solar photovoltaic installed capacity by 2026. This plan is meaningful for a country with the best solar radiation in Europe. Compared to other European markets, Portugal's production capacity has increased by 50%.
Most panel members believe that licensing is one of the main issues currently facing the Portuguese market, while insufficient grid capacity is another major bottleneck for Portugal to achieve ambitious renewable energy growth by 2030.
Renato Madureira, Country Manager of FF Ventures Portugal, said, "The main problem we are facing is a lack of capacity, and we do not have the capacity to connect to the grid." This issue not only affects newer projects, but also projects signed in previous tenders.
For old projects that are already waiting to be connected to the grid, in order for Portugal to achieve its goal of new renewable energy capacity by the end of this century, it is necessary to consolidate the grid and do more work.
Amaral added, "We need to invest in smart grids," while Pereira added that consolidating the grid takes too long.
"A very important factor that we should expect is new decarbonization driving forces related to Power to X, such as renewable gases and green fuels," Pereira said. These will require new renewable energy to power, which is not foreseeable in 2019.
Green hydrogen is expected to become one of the driving forces for power to X, and several projects have been announced. Sines has positioned itself as a possible center for this technology in Portugal. Portuguese developer Madoqua Renewables, Dutch developer Power2X, energy giants Shell, and Engie have invested $1 billion to support a cross-border green hydrogen project connecting the port of Sines, where green hydrogen will be produced in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
In the keynote speech at the beginning of the event, Nelson Lage, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Portuguese Energy Agency (ADENE), proposed the importance of self use as a "part of future energy" to help Portugal increase the more solar capacity it needs in order to achieve its newer and higher goals by 2030.
